When the stones are exhausted, fighting follows, though it is more like a brawl, each boy gripping another of similar height and weight and rolling through the dirt as one body. Teeth sink into ankles. Thumbs press into shut eyes. Everywhere, a tangle of gangly limbs, a wobbling, lurching dance through clouds of kicked-up dust. The high-pitched shrieks of younger children splinter the shouts of older ones. She would join, except she doesn’t know where to begin, and she can’t tell the enemy from her own side anymore. Next time, she thinks, it would help for the boys from Domrémy to mark themselves somehow, perhaps to wear a piece of cloth tied around their arms in the same color. Or the Burgundians could dress as horned devils. That would do the job, too. At the thought, she smiles.

When they’d first arrived, Joan had noted the dark borderline of trees that rimmed the land and said, Look, Jacquemin, look up. In the voice that never failed to put a murderous glint in her father’s eye, she’d told her brother, You should have begun collecting stones weeks ago. Every mock battle, its date and hour and location, is determined by the captains well in advance. We—she includes herself in this we—could have found the best rocks and put them in sacks to raise, by rope, to the tops of the trees. Then each boy would climb to a covert branch, and from his perch, he could ambush the enemy as soon as they arrived. The boys of Maxey, they’d believe the sky or God was pelting rocks at them. They’d piss themselves. They’d run.

But her brother had only glared at her. A lad of few words. Her father thinks this is one of his strengths; she thinks he’s just slow. “If you want to stay…” he’d said, not finishing the sentence. He’d extended an arm and gestured carelessly at the field. Look for rocks.

From a distance, she spots Maxey’s captain in a deadlock with Jacquemin, which makes her want to reach out to her brother with a long arm and shake him. Not five minutes have passed, and already you need my help! But she bends. The stick fills her right hand. She runs in the direction of the enemy’s exposed back, the head like a wisp of orange flame, catching the sunlight. She raises the stick to strike, as well as to fend off anyone who might think of attacking—

A scream stops her.